Even the death of Dr. Vance would not deter her. She would win the day, she thought. If all mixed-race blacks left with her, the so-called African American agenda would be weakened to the point of nonexistence. No more government set-asides, no more political clout, no more affirmative action. There would be a multibillion-dollar fallout, and groups like the NOAA, NAACP, and the Urban League would crumble into dust. Nothing in this country would ever be the same.
There was a knock on her door, which took her out of her wonderful reverie. She tucked her speech away in her purse and opened the door, revealing her son Cal, standing there in his elegant tux with a wild look on his face. His eyes bulged in their sockets and his face was twisted into a smile so wide and tight that it looked as if it would split his face.
“Son, are you okay?” she asked.
“We are fine,” he said coldly. Then he raised his arm, and brought his weapon into her face with all his might.
34
NIGHT STATION
Danny had tracked down the Stallworths to their home, but security reported that they’d found all the members of the family unconscious, except Virginia and Cal, who were missing. Someone had put some kind of drug in a bottle of champagne, knocking out the family members. There were guards posted outside the house but they reported seeing no one leave the home.
The police were working on the theory that someone had abducted the two, but Danny didn’t think so. One of them had taken the other, and he was betting that it was Cal who was the abductor. Why was what he didn’t know.
John Baker’s tapes were recordings of meetings of Virginia’s new elite group. All of the people on her list were accounted for. Danny listened in shock as he heard Virginia’s plan for race domination. She was crazy but, apparently, her son Cal was equally as bent.
Danny had turned in the money and told his boss what he’d been up to. Jim had covered for him as usual, saying that he was on a special mission. This was chiefly due to the Bady brothers’ situation, which was a bloody mess.
They’d run a check on the brothers and connected them to a series of crimes stretching across the country. In the face of closing a lot of cases, no one was asking questions.
Reverend Bolt was in the hospital, unconscious and in critical condition. For now the police assumed Bolt had been kidnapped or carjacked by the brothers.
Danny had called for backup from the SCU team and the FBI. Marshall had gone back to his family, safe and sound.
Danny arrived at the home of Virginia Stallworth to find an angry Janis and an angrier Erik waiting for him. Erik’s arms were folded across his chest and Janis’s hands were on her hips. Their faces held the same expression, pissed off.
“This is completely unacceptable,” said Janis.
“Damned right it is, partner,” said Erik.
“I can’t explain right now,” said Danny. “I had some problems, but that’s behind me.”
“And we’re just supposed to forget about you leaving us out to dry?” asked Erik.
“Yes,” said Jim from behind Erik. “You can kick his ass tomorrow, but right now, we have a killer at large.” Jim reached into his pocket and handed Danny his badge and gun. Danny took it quickly and no more was said.
Danny explained to Janis and Erik what he had learned. They both seemed unwilling to accept that the whole case hinged on matters of color. As they went inside the home, Danny could feel the anger radiated by Janis and Erik. He had to get back into the case and if he knew them that would be all they needed to forgive him.
The Stallworth home was neat and undisturbed, except for one thing. Someone had defaced many of the family pictures. Virginia’s face was scratched out of picture after picture. But not Cal’s. His face was left intact. They also found two bottles of prescription pills for Cal. Janis noted that the medication was given to stave off severe mental depression. The bottles were full.
“It’s the son,” said Danny. He called everyone over and they examined the pictures.
“All the pictures upstairs are the same,” said another cop. “Mom’s X-ed out.”
“Got any theories on this?” Danny asked Janis.
“He hates his mother,” said Janis. “But why? They’re the same color.”
Chip, the FBI boss, was engaged in a serious conversation with Jim across the room. He motioned to Danny, Erik, and Janis. Danny lingered behind, his attention drawn to another picture on the wall.
“Our canvas has to be tight. The Stallworth woman is probably gone by now,” said Chip. “So, we have to find Cal before he can flee the city or kill himself.”
“We’ll have to coordinate with other law enforcement,” said Jim. “And the county and state boys will want to be brought in.”
“Fine,” said Chip. “As long they obey the chain of command. Our other offices will lend us more men. He’s got to be somewhere in the city, and we’re going to find him tonight.”
“I got something here,” said Danny.
Jim and the others moved over to a picture of Virginia and her husband when they were much younger. Oscar was smiling, and Virginia looked happy. Behind them was the sprawling train station on the city’s south-west side. Back then, it was still open, though in the process of closing down. None of this was what had caught Danny’s attention. In Virginia’s arms were two little babies dressed in white jumpers. Danny grabbed the picture and took it out of its frame.
“Danny, what are you doing?” asked Janis. “That’s evidence.”
“This picture,” said Danny. “It’s the only one in the house where Virginia’s face is not crossed out, and look at the kids’ faces.”
They all looked at the picture. Virginia held the two kids. One of them was pink, the other dark brown.
Danny examined the back of the photo, and read what was written there:
My angels: Colson and twin brother Callent.
“They told me Cal’s brother died,” said Danny. “But they never said how. And they sure as hell didn’t say he looked like this. Throughout this case the color of the victims has been an issue. Virginia’s group was composed of mixed-race people. She was obsessed with it and somehow it poisoned her family. I’d bet everything that Cal thinks she killed his brother because he was darker.”
“Jesus,” said Erik. “Would she do that?”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Janis. “If her son thinks she did.”
“That explains the medication we found upstairs,” said Janis. “The bottles are full, so he hasn’t been taking his medicine. He been growing more and more depressed.”
“Me and Janis saw Cal and his sister Gwen arguing about something at their house,” said Danny. “And Gwen was waving a bottle of pills at him.”
“He was not taking his medication and she knew it,” said Janis.
“Yes,” said Danny. “And this picture proves it. He couldn’t deface it because—”
“He loved her back then,” Janis finished for him.
“The train station,” said Danny. “That’s where he is.”
“We can’t gamble the entire investigation on a hunch, Detective,” said Chip.
“I don’t think it’s just a hunch, sir,” said Janis. “This picture held special meaning for him. The building here is where he would go.”
“Maybe we should break off a detachment and check this out,” said Jim.
Jim and Chip moved aside and began to talk in private. They stepped back just as quickly and each looked directly at Danny.
“Let’s do it,” said Chip. “My people will lead the unit.”
Danny looked over to Jim, who subtly nodded his head. Danny agreed and Jim and Chip went off to coordinate. It was law enforcement politics at its best.
Danny moved over to Erik and Janis. He didn’t want to end this case with them angry at him. But he couldn’t tell them why he’d vanished and went on to get Bellva without them. The matter of his mother’s death had to end with him and his father.
“I don’t have any excuses,
” said Danny. “Just know that this has been the worst time of my life. These last few days I couldn’t come to you. If you’re gonna have a problem with me for this, Erik, I understand.”
“Trust was broken,” said Erik.
“And you sure as hell didn’t make me my boss’s favorite,” said Janis.
“I know,” said Danny. “But this was not about the job. It was personal.”
Erik quickly moved to his partner and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Fuck it,” he said. Danny clapped a hand on Erik’s shoulder and smiled. “It ain’t like I needed the extra work, you know.”
“The next crazed killer is all yours,” said Danny. He looked over at Janis, whose eyes told him that she was not as ready to forgive as Erik.
“If you two are done being in love,” said Janis, “maybe we can go arrest our killer.”
Detroit’s old train station sits on Sixteenth Street and Vernor, on the city’s lower west side. It is a massive building, both grand and pitiful, a beautiful old structure neglected by time and abandoned by the great city that built it. It was scheduled for demolition and it stood by like a condemned man waiting for execution.
Danny and the tactical team moved in several blocks away, then proceeded on foot. Danny, Erik, and Janis took the lead, supported by a team of FBI and SCU cops. Chip, Jim, and the other big bosses fell back.
On the way to the station, the SCU had learned that Colson Stallworth, Cal’s twin brother, was killed at the age of ten in a boating accident on the river off St. Clair Shores. Virginia and young Colson had been together in the boat when it tipped over. It was ruled a death by accident, but apparently Cal didn’t think so. Several times he’d tried to get the police to investigate the killing, but no one would listen to the rantings of a ten-year-old.
A year after his brother’s death, Cal Stallworth was put into a juvenile rest home, a fancy name for a mental facility. He had been in and out of treatment houses for most of his life. The shock of losing his brother had kept him on the edge of sanity.
The feds wore flack jackets with FBI emblazoned on the back. The Special Crimes Unit wore similar jackets with their letters. To Danny, they looked like two well-armed softball teams running through the night.
Chip and Jim had arranged to have the streetlights turned off so that Cal could not see their approach. They hoped that he would believe that it was a power outage. They also pulled up blueprints of the station so that Danny’s team would know the basic outlay of the place.
The train station was dark and stretched out over what could have been three city blocks. Its facade was aged and gray, littered with cracks and holes. The pitch windows looked like hundreds of black eyes. It was a colossal haunted house. Across from it Roosevelt Park where three men sat around passing a bottle. The darkness didn’t deter them from their little party.
Danny went over to them and pulled out his badge. “Yo. Y’all seen anybody go in there?” Danny pointed at the train station.
“Naw, Mr. Po-leece man,” said an old black man with no teeth in the front. “Ain’t nobody crazy enough to go in that muthafucka. It’s got ghosts.”
“I thought I saw somebody,” said another man. “I thought I saw him drag somethin’ up in there.”
“You outta yo’ mind, man,” said the first man. “This whiskey ain’t that damned good!”
They all laughed and the toothless man choked a little, then killed it with a drink.
“We got a car in the rear off the side street,” said an officer on the radio.
“Copy that,” said Erik. “He’s inside just like you said.”
“Okay, we go in and get him,” said Danny. “The place is big, so we’ll have to stick to the blueprint. If we stay quiet, maybe he’ll make some noise and lead us to him.”
“Nobody get cocky,” said Chip on the radio. “Proceed with caution.”
Danny pulled out both of his guns. After the incident with the Bady brothers he was not about to go in with one hand empty. Danny turned off his radio and instructed the backup team to do the same. Then he nodded to Erik and Janis, and moved toward the train station.
Danny and his team edged over to the front of the building and saw that someone had forced open the door. Danny, Janis, and Erik went inside, careful not to make any noise.
The lobby of the old train station had lost none of its grandness. It was a cavernous, crumbling mess. The place was dim, and the only light was from the door that Danny had just come in. They were assaulted by many smells, none of them good.
Danny waited until their eyes adjusted to the darkness. Then he could see that the floor was covered in debris, plywood, broken glass, beer cans, and the carcasses of dead rats.
They stood in the lobby for several minutes, waiting to hear something. A rodent scurried from a wall and stopped to pick at the dead body of its brother, then moved on. Danny heard gagging behind him, but it was not Janis, it was Erik, who detested rats.
“Sorry, man,” he said. “I hate them damned things.”
They huddled together in a tight circle and were motionless as the thickness of the stench assaulted their lungs. It looked like a good place to die, Danny thought grimly.
They heard a sound from above. It was soft, but audible. A voice. Someone was yelling. They could not make out the words, but that was beside the point. Their killer was here.
Danny pointed to the decrepit upper floors of the building and slowly broke the circle by moving toward the stairs. Erik and Janis followed. Janis took out a small light and the shrunken copy of the train station’s blueprints. Erik called for the backup team to move in closer as they proceeded.
There was not much time, Danny thought. If Virginia were not the killer’s mother, she would probably be dead already, or maybe she was dead, and Cal was ranting to himself over her corpse.
They went to a stairwell. The farther they moved into the place, the darker it got and the louder the voice became. Danny didn’t know which was making him more nervous. He stopped when he got to a long stairwell. Looking up, he saw only murky darkness.
Danny peered at the stairwell and saw his own mother at the top of the flight, tumbling through air, twisting and falling, her descent racing against the poison that she’d put into herself. He saw his grief-stricken father, crying, broken by his own murderous mercy.
Danny’s mother was a wrecked vessel at the end of her life, ruined by fate, choices, and limited love. Lucy had severed the emotional bond and taken her own life. Somewhere up those stairs, another son and his mother were engaging fate, only this time it was the son who had crumbled and was going to take his mother’s life.
Danny pulled himself back into reality. Virginia was not his mother, he told himself. She was the killer’s mother and whether he saved her or not, it would never bring back Lucy Cavanaugh or change the things she’d written about him.
Danny carefully stepped up the stairs, trying to keep quiet. He placed one foot down slowly and waited for a sound. When he heard none, he moved on to the next. This process took a long time, but it was the only way to go. Danny moved closer to the top and he noticed that there were now two voices.
Danny reached the second floor and leaned in and peeked around the corner to the hallway. No one was there. Then he heard the voices again. They were higher up.
Danny, Erik, and Janis entered the hallway and Danny immediately went to the next flight of stairs. It was covered in debris, the kind that would make noise if he stepped wrongly.
Then they heard the “pop” of a small-caliber gun and Virginia cried out loudly. Danny tensed and started up the second flight. Erik followed. Danny went as fast as he could, not wanting to hear another shot.
“Slow down,” Erik whispered.
Virginia cried out in pain, but now it was muffled. Cal ranted, and Danny could hear him clearly.
“Why did you do it?” Cal yelled. “Why did you kill us?”
Virginia did not answer, she just cried. Then she grunted, a sick hurt sound. �
��Cal, please,” she said. “I’m bleeding….”
“There is no Cal! You killed him when you murdered his brother! We don’t respond to those names.”
“It was an accident,” said Virginia. “An accident,” she repeated in a lower voice.
“Accident!” screamed Cal. “You tortured us, nothing we did was good enough for you. And you hated Colson’s skin, you despised his color. We heard you, talking about it, your filthy sick words about how he was not one of the family.”
“I was wrong,” said Virginia. “I was too young back then, I’m sorry but I didn’t kill him, son—”
“Don’t call me that!” yelled Cal. “Can’t you see what I am now? Can’t you see the glow on me? I am an angel, just like you used to call me when I was little.”
“Yes, I can see,” Virginia cried. “I can see, please don’t hurt me anymore.”
“You killed my brother and tore our family apart.”
“No!” said Virginia. “Oscar came back to me, and we went on with our family. When Gwen was born there were no problems.”
“I knew about your plan to create a race of people just like you. A new race, Mother?” He laughed. “Only you in your sick dementia would even think to do that.”
Danny didn’t hear an answer from Virginia. She just cried. Then he heard another loud pop, and Virginia screamed in pain.
Danny reached the landing and swung his head into the hallway. He saw them. Cal had his mother tied up in the middle of a hallway next to a railing. It must have overlooked the lobby below, which was why they had heard them from downstairs.
Virginia was sitting down and Cal knelt next to her. Near them was a small light.
Danny swung back and looked at Erik. He searched for Janis, but she was gone. Erik checked behind him. He saw nothing but darkness.
Danny didn’t want to chance calling out to Janis. He nodded his head, then stepped into the hallway.
Cal jerked around and held up the gun. He eyes were wild and his face contorted. He was putting a tape patch on Virginia’s latest wound.
“Get away from her, Cal,” said Danny. He could see just Erik at his side.
Color of Justice Page 26
